A popular former NDP MPP and cabinet minister, he was an idealist, a man of
the people to constituents and a thorn in the side of premiers. He was also
possessed of a sharp intellect, an encyclopedic knowledge of parliamentary
procedure and a rare ability to set partisanship aside and befriend even his
ideological opposites.

Mr. Kormos was found dead in his Welland, Ont., home Saturday morning. He was
60 years old. He had suffered health problems in recent years – a case of Bell’s
palsy, a bad back and, by one account, high blood pressure – but his death took
friends and colleagues by surprise. The cause is still under investigation.

“He was a fighter for the underdog and he maintained that commitment to
people who are struggling every day,” Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in
an interview with The Globe and Mail. “No matter how smart he was, no matter how
strategic he was, he would have people flocking to him at the market and the
firehall and the dry cleaner when he went out in his riding.”

Born Oct. 7, 1952, to a working-class family in industrial Welland, Mr.
Kormos’s political activism began in high school: He was expelled for leading a
strike to protest against the principal’s veto power over student council.
Living on his own from the age of 16, he put himself through Toronto’s Osgoode
Hall Law School by working nights at a Yonge Street bookstore. Degree in hand,
he returned to Welland as a criminal defence lawyer.

He joined the legislature in a 1988 by-election. Then-NDP leader Bob Rae
campaigned with him and saw his charisma firsthand.

“He was a terrific natural politician. He was very good with people in his
constituency. He understood the old adage that all politics is local,” said Mr.
Rae, now a federal Liberal MP and outgoing interim party leader. “Whatever
factory we walked through or a couple of local restaurants, he was just
extremely, extremely popular, very personable. He knew everybody.”

When the party won the 1990 election, Mr. Rae appointed him to cabinet. The
two men soon had a falling out after Mr. Kormos appeared – fully clothed – as a
“sunshine boy” in the Toronto Sun. They also clashed when the government reneged
on a pledge to set up a public auto-insurance system.

Mr. Kormos became a left-wing critic of his own party as it tacked toward the
centre, voting against Mr. Rae’s so-called social-contract legislation that
imposed unpaid days off on civil servants.

“Peter was an old-school fundamentalist when it came to the NDP and to
politics. He was very much somebody who saw good guys and bad guys,” Mr. Rae
said. “He was somebody who was instinctively happier in opposition to authority
than being subject to it.”

When Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservatives crushed the NDP in 1995 and
began a budget-slashing program, Mr. Kormos put his parliamentary skills to good
use on the opposition benches. Not only was he a sharp questioner and orator,
but he helped keep party morale up during its hardest days.

Then-leader Howard Hampton recalled one instance where Mr. Kormos’s
procedural manoeuvring stalled a Tory bill from going to committee. As PC MPPs
sat aghast, he said, Mr. Kormos hollered: “Learn the rules!” He later helped
organize a 10-day filibuster when Mr. Harris created the Toronto megacity over
local councillors’ objections.

His personable nature also served him well when, determined to expose the
effects of Mr. Harris’s cuts, fellow NDP MPP Shelley Martel persuaded Mr. Kormos
to join her and a videographer on an early morning excursion to the Family
Responsibility Office in the Toronto suburbs. Mr. Kormos finessed his way past a
security guard, telling him they were there to meet with the attorney-general,
Ms. Martel recalled. Inside, they shot video of a room full of empty desks and
unplugged computers.

Mr. Kormos was charged criminally in the incident – he was ultimately
exonerated by a judge – and the proceedings gave Mr. Hampton a glimpse of Mr.
Kormos’s softer side.

“He came into my office and he almost had tears in his eyes. He said, ‘You
know that if I’m convicted that’s probably it for me.’ I said, ‘No one’s going
to convict you,’ ” Mr. Hampton recalled. “This guy who had this gruff, gruff
exterior – he could get pretty emotional about things.”

Despite these battles, Mr. Kormos became friends with some of the most
combative members of the Tory caucus, including John Baird.

“He was a one-of-a-kind, larger-than-life figure, a true parliamentarian,
always fought for the little guy. I enjoyed working with him as House leader in
government and especially in opposition,” Mr. Baird, now federal Foreign
Minister, wrote in an e-mail.

“On my last day as an MPP before resigning to run federally, he even showed
up at my Conservative going-away party!”

When the Liberals took power in 2003, one of their MPPs took umbrage with Mr.
Kormos’s attire – an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and no tie –
and moved to have the legislature adopt a suit-and-tie dress code. Mr. Kormos
organized a caucus protest: His fellow NDP MPPs showed up in the House one day
all dressed like him, while Mr. Kormos wore a tuxedo.

“He was making a point about who he was – and he wasn’t about to change it
for anybody,” said NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson, who served as Mr. Kormos’s
chief whip.

His constituency work was also tireless, as he frequently assisted and
advocated for locals navigating the province’s bureaucracy and helped solve
their problems.

Outside work, Mr. Bisson recalled, Mr. Kormos liked to collect fountain pens
and photography books, and shoot pictures himself. One time, Mr. Bisson took him
out fishing on the Kamiskotia River, where Mr. Kormos got within a few feet of a
moose to photograph it. When, at one point, the boat had to be hauled through
some rapids, Mr. Bisson jumped out and did the work himself so Mr. Kormos
wouldn’t ruin his cowboy boots, Mr. Bisson laughed.

Mr. Kormos was also a voracious reader with a passion for political
theory.

He took a leave of absence for back surgery before the 2011 election, and did
not seek another term. Mr. Hampton said he also suffered high blood pressure and
decided in recent years to take better care of himself.

Last year, Mr. Kormos won a seat on Niagara Regional Council. He also
co-hosted a current-affairs show on a St. Catharines talk-radio station and was
about to return to practising criminal defence law.

On the morning he was found dead, Mr. Hampton said, Mr. Kormos had been
planning to go the market as he always did, and mingle with the people he long
represented.

“He was always true to himself and what he believed in,” Ms. Martel said. “He
didn’t really care whether people liked or disliked him for it.”

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